New Beginnings
by reignofhavok
Summary: Josh Guthrie aka Icarus has gone through a lot of changes recently. His thoughts on some of those events. Angsty.


**Summary: **A think piece. Josh has been through quite a few changes lately, and hasn't felt the need to necessarily share with us. So, I'm doing it for him :) Tis kinda gloomy, cause hey, Josh is just a gloomy kind of guy ;)

**Disclaimer: **Don't own him, don't own any of them. Wish I did, but I'm just a poor student who can barely afford to buy their comics as it is ;)

**Notes:** This is my first real fic, ie, in that I've actually finished it. I haven't written anything in years, so I'm still rusty. But please leave feedback so I can improve. Thanks :)

**New Beginnings**

When I came to, her lips were on me. Those beautiful, soft, silky lips. But something didn't feel right, the air around me felt... weird. We were in the lake, and from the looks of it, pretty far down. I grasped Julia's shoulders and pulled her back, and there was no resistance. Her eyes remained closed, her lips still pouting in an endless kiss.

I panicked. Using my wings I powered us to the surface, and holding my love in my arms I took her to the shore. Muttering, shaky, I tried CPR, all the while calling her name and whispering my endless love to her. It didn't work. She was... dead. Dead. Because of me. Because I was a stupid mutant.

I cried over her body. I don't remember how long, does it really matter in the end? Julia was dead, nothing else mattered. Through my teary eyes I spotted a broken sign in the distance. Sniffing, I slowly stood up, water still dripping off my body and tears rolling down my face.

A calm suddenly settled over my body, as if I had been privy to the meaning of life itself, as if all my life's dreams had come true and it was finally time for me to pass on. It wasn't the truth, of course it wasn't, but it was the answer I was looking for. I grabbed the sign and walked back over to Julia, her lifeless body still as beautiful as ever. Soon, my love, we would be together again soon.

I leant down beside her, bracing as I pressed the broken post against my chest. Just, push it through, that's all I had to do. It would all end, I could be back with my Julia. Things would go back to how they should be. All I had to do was... push.

I did. I pushed the damn post and it was agonising. I wouldn't scream in pain though. I wouldn't. I fell over Julia's body, waiting for the bliss of oblivion to overtake me. It never came.

I pulled the post out and looked down, and with both amazement and utter terror I saw the huge wound in my chest healing itself. Isn't it funny how irony works? The one thing I wanted in all the world, to be with my Julia again, my Julia who died because I was a stupid mutant, and it turns out I have another power. Another one that once again would keep me away from her. I could heal. Great time to find out hey Joshy?

No, nothing was going to keep me away from her. I tried again, that agonising, sweet pain, but with the same results. I cried again, this time in defeat, in resignation, just in pain. I tried again and again, but no matter how much pain I went through, no matter how hot my tears burned, I just kept on healing.

I probably would have carried on like that for days, had my sister's boyfriend not shown up. Hey guess what, he might as well be my twin. Wings and healing blood, who'd have thought? He found me shoving a broken post repeatedly into my chest, my lover's dead body leaning on my knees.

He was understanding. I hated him for it. I didn't want understanding, I didn't want a chat about how special I was, about how I had been given a gift to help humanity. I just wanted Julia. I wanted it to all end.

I carried Julia's body back to the farm. I was near collapsing when I got there, but it didn't matter. My mother took care of things, like she always does. We had our own funeral for Julia. I wrote a song in her memory. I sang it only once, just once. It was too painful to sing it ever again, to even look at it. It was supposed to have been a record crowd that night. Good, because it was my last.

I hadn't even had time to grieve when my mother threw another shocker at me. She had enrolled me at Xavier's Institute, without even asking me whether I'd like to go or not. She figured that because Sam and Paige had gone there, I would like to as well. Her reasoning being that, if I hadn't wanted the world to know I was a mutant, I wouldn't have shown it off at my rock shows. And that would mean I'd want to become an X-Man, why?

I said what I guessed would be my last goodbye to Julia and drove with my mother to the Institute. Why couldn't she understand that right now I just wanted to be alone in my grief? Not playing catch with a bunch of freaks. That was Sam and Paige's deal, not mine. Years ago I had wanted to be a superhero just like them. I'd since grown up. Being abandoned by your older siblings and left to run a farm and brood of kids at an illegal age tended to do that.

But that's the thing, isn't it? No one had ever cared about how I felt. Never. I was the middle child, the invisible child. Sam got all the glory, then Paige had become the darling. The younger kids were adored and gushed over by everyone. Joelle and Elizabeth were teenage girls, when they wanted to be heard, they were heard. Me? No one cared. No one ever did.

I was bullied at school, had come home wearing my lunch more times than I cared to remember. The twins used my room as their personal playpen, all the while screaming how much they loved Sam and how he was the cool brother. They all wanted to be like him. The big X-Man superhero. Not stupid little Josh, who couldn't even look at someone the wrong way without getting shoved into a bin.

Yet at the same time, they still expected me to run the farm. Go to school, work in the mines, clean up after the kids. Chin up Josh, things could be worse they'd always say. I'd always asked how, but never received an answer. Well, I guess this is how...

My first day at the institute was... less than stellar. I was surrounded by freaks, literally. One kid looked like an elephant, another could shoot quills, innumerable kids could turn into all sorts of sticky substances... I didn't fit in. I didn't want to fit in. I just wanted to be back at home, grieving for Julia and playing with my band.

Despite my pleading, I was forced to stay. Fine. I'd stay. I'd learn with these freaks. But if I happened to slip and fall on something sharp one night, I couldn't be held responsible for it. Not like it would matter anyway...

I was given the school tour. Not once, but twice. Kinda pointless really. Just like my life I guess. But as much as I hated to admit it, some of the things around the place were pretty cool. The teachers in this place were just constantly beating each other up. How many other schools can you see that in? And not just regular fights either. They're all claws a-popping, blasts a-shooting, ice a-flowing. The insurance premiums on this place must be astronomical.

But, just like my old school, seems like old habits died hard. The kids all talked behind my back. But now instead of being stinky Josh Guthrie, who was going to marry one of his many sisters, I was that guy whose girlfriend drowned. That freak who tried to kill himself but couldn't.

But, life went on. Ha. For me it just wouldn't seem to end, no matter how much I pressed the issue. A few brave souls tried to engage me during the first few weeks, but they soon got the message that I wanted to be left alone. Why was that such a hard concept to grasp?

I could hear them at night as I lay in my bed. Snickering as they walked past the door. Making gurgling sounds. Mutants could be just as cruel as normals. My roommate always told me to ignore them. My roommate Sammy, aka, Fishboy. Seriously. I almost died when I realised I would be spending at least the next year sharing my room with a fish. But he was actually quite cool. For the first time since I could remember, he genuinely seemed interested in me, in my pain.

He was the only person since Julia's death to broach the subject with me. My mother, my family, they had carried on like nothing had ever happened. I guess they thought that would make things easier on me, but it didn't. He got me talking about her, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I felt something besides pain again. He truly seemed to understand me, he listened and didn't judge.

Sammy was a great kid. Still only a kid, but he seemed wise beyond his years. Perhaps because of his terrible upbringing. But he was eternally optimistic, and I guess in the end that started to rub off on me too. How could you sit feeling gloomy when you had a kid as happy as Sammy bounding around the room all day? For the first time since I'd met my bandmates, I felt I had found a kindred spirit. And it was with a guy that looked like a fish. Strange world, huh?

With Sammy's help, I decided that I would start afresh. Totally anew. I even took the nickname Jay, which my mates used to call me. There was already another Josh here, but I just didn't want anything to do with my life previously, with my life as Josh Guthrie. I even took the codename Icarus. Me, with a codename. A couple of years ago I'd have been laughed all the way back to the farm. But now, now I was surrounded by kids with all sorts of freaky powers and even freakier names. I figured Icarus fit. Icarus met a gloomy end, I'm a gloomy guy, we both have wings, what else do you need?

I was even placed on a team. I often wondered if it was some cruel sort of joke though, I was nothing like the rest of the guys. They were... well to be honest, just like the ones that used to throw me in bins and send me home wearing all assortments of food and trash. They wanted to make life hell for one of the other teams, the New Mutants. I didn't want to get on anyone's case. I just wanted to get through this year and then leave. They had other ideas.

I get the feeling that Julian, our 'leader', doesn't like me. Can't ever guess why. But it's a mutual feeling, the guy rubs me the wrong way. He acts like he's not just god's gift to women, but to the Earth itself. If you're not his lackey, then you're his target. There is no inbetween. He's just lucky he's younger than me, or he'd be finding out what other uses my large, powerful wings have.

And so now, here I am. A few months down the track and my life has changed forever. For the better? I can't tell yet. But life is moving on, I guess that's something. I'm slowly making some friends, probably quickly making more enemies, but I've never been the most likeable of guys. People don't seem to like my quiet, reserved demeanour. They see it as snobbery or something. Whatever.

I've even noticed someone. A girl. Every time I see her my heart tears up, remembering Julia. I don't think the pain will ever go away, but at least the burning desire to stab myself with something is fading. It hurts, it hurts terribly, but I have to move on. It's that old cliche, 'oh, Julia would have wanted it...' Sad thing is, she probably would have. Which makes it hurt all the more.

But I'm trying. I'm trying real hard. The girl is a challenge, which I guess is probably better than some girl who would throw herself all over me at first sight. It's been a long, slow... courting process I guess you could say. I think she's been burned as well. She keeps this photo with her, herself and another young man. Talk around the school is that he also died, not long before she came back to the institute. So there's one thing we have in common already.

As for what the future holds, who knows. At first I'd have rathered walk through a pit of snakes than come to this place, but now that I've been here for a while it's not all that bad. Some of the company leaves much to be desired, but what can you expect? Some of the kids here could blow up the entire place if they wanted to, best to learn to live with them.

Will I become an X-Man? Who knows. If you had asked me a few months ago I probably would have laughed in your face and thrown in a few curses for good measure. Now? I just don't know... but it wouldn't be the end of the world for me if it did happen. This mutant life isn't so bad, and it's kinda nice to feel useful, for the first time in my life. The feeling I get when I've accomplished something, helped someone out... yeah, it wouldn't be so bad being an X-Man at all.


End file.
